Basic Ammeters and Voltmeters
Basic Ammeters And Voltmeters
Find out how to monitor the health of your RE system's generator and batteries
electronics | storage | wind | solarIn even the most basic
renewable energy system it is essential to monitor the charge in the
battery bank, the voltage and current coming from the
generator, and the current being drawn by the
power inverter or other loads. In this article we will cover
moving coil meters - the cheapest and simplest devices for displaying current and voltage in a system.
Moving Coil Voltmeters
The simplest way of monitoring the voltage of the
battery bank is a
moving coil voltmeter. These are available from around £5-10 each and can simply be wired to the positive and negative outputs of the battery bank. They do not need their own battery power since they take a tiny current from the batteries.
Pictured above is a 8-16 Volt DC
Analogue Voltmeter which is perfect for measuring the voltage of a
12V battery or
12V battery bank.
NEW We have an excellent top-quality 0-30VDC
moving coil voltmeter for sale in the
REUK Shop.
Moving Coil Ammeters
Ammeters, used to measure the current flowing into or out of the battery bank, are also available for a wide range of different applications from micro-Amps (e.g. in solar cell experimentation) to hundreds of Amps (e.g. in large wind turbines). Pictured below is a 0-20A
moving coil ammeter.
Since the current flows into and out of the battery bank as the batteries are charged or discharged, the most suitable
renewable energy system ammeters are centred on zero - a positive reading indicates that the batteries are being charged by the generator, and a negative reading indicates the batteries are being discharged.
Above is a photograph of an automotive
analogue ammeter which shows currents from -200 to +200 Amps. This would have limited use in most domestic
renewable energy systems except with very large
wind turbine generators and multi-kW
hydroelectric generators since the current range is so large - however there are many smaller range ammeters available - e.g. -20A to +20A which would be perfect for a small domestic wind turbine generator or
solar installation.
Article Last Modified: 18:17, 26th Feb 2007
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